Category / Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth

Centre for Entrepreneurship student event with Business Mania

The Centre for Entrepreneurship continued its program of activities for BU students just before Christmas with a joint event with Business Mania, the BU student enterprise society.  We were delighted that CfE tenant and student entrepreneur Robin Humphries, from award winning Static Games, was able to give a presentation to a group of 70 students about his experience of setting up a business.  Robin gave the group an insight into the challenges he has faced and provided hints and tips for budding entrepreneurs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Static Games has been a tenant in the Centre for Entrepreneurship since early 2014 and the CfE have been delighted to support the growing company, even assisting them to successfully pitch for £10,000 equity-free Creative England funding.  This business event is one of many forthcoming student activities the Centre for Entrepreneurship will be involved in. If you have any student entrepreneurs on your courses who would like to find out more please do contact us: nharvey@bournemouth.ac.uk

For the full write up and video please visit the BUCFE website

 

Showcasing Undergraduate Research Excellence – SUREBU 2015: call for submissions

Fusion, Research news, student research

SUREBU is a Fusion funded project aimed at showcasing the best of BU’s undergraduate research.  Research is broadly defined and could include work towards an undergraduate essay or dissertation, work carried out as part of a volunteer or work placement, or activities for an academic society.  Not only are research skills a central part of undergraduate study and academic life, but they are also vital skills for any future career.  By encouraging undergraduate students to think critically and develop their skills, research will help to enhance their student experience and increase their employability upon graduation.

The call for submissions is now open, and all BU undergraduate students – from all schools and courses – are eligible to apply.  Examples of research could be anything from preparing for a dissertation or an essay to work carried out during a placement year to volunteering or work with academic societies.   The main criteria is that evidence of the student’s own critical thinking can be demonstrated.  As well as developing new skills, this is a good opportunity to enhance their CVs through a conference presentation, publication of abstract or even being the winner of awards and prizes.

To get involved, register on SUREBU’s website and submit an abstract.  Abstracts should be a maximum of 300 words, with a title no longer than 150 characters.  The deadline for submission is 5th January 2015.  If you know of a student or recent graduate who would be eligible to submit, do encourage them to apply!

Reminder For All Consumer Researchers – December Meeting of Consumer Research @ BU

Uncategorized

Just over a month ago we held a very successful meeting bringing together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University.  Our ‘Hands-On Information Sharing Session’ made it clear that there was tremendous potential for cross-disciplinary research and that as a united group we could not only act as a forum for research and ideas but also to provide a platform for interaction with industry.

This is a reminder that our next meeting is going to be held on:-

Wednesday, 3rd December in CG01, Christchurch House between 3-5pm.  [Please note the change in venue.]

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome (e.g. consumer behaviour, retail, marketing, advertising, psychology, consumer neuroscience …) and there will be coffee and mince pies to help our consumer thinking along.

At this meeting we will be begin to identify groups or clusters of researchers, to discuss potential collaborations, and discuss plans for the future.

So if you think this might be of interest, please do come along next Wednesday.  If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

 

Event for your students: How I Survived My First Year in Business: The Brutal Truth

The Centre for Entrepreneurship, in association with Business Mania the BU Student Society, is delighted to present How I Survived My First Year in Business:The Brutal Truth, a short talk by CfE entrepreneur, Robin Humphreyies.

Robin is one of the founding members of Static Games and White Pug and set up the business during his placement year with a team of seven.  Twelve months later, with £10,000 in equity-free funding and a successful trading record, Robin reflects upon his journey.  In his short talk, this student entrepreneur will consider the top 10 challenges faced during his immersion in the world of business and, more importantly, how he overcame them and what he learned. Audience members will then have the opportunity of asking Robin questions about his placement-year business.

When? 1pm Wednesday 26th November 2014

Where? Lawrence Lecture Theatre, Talbot Campus

Ever thought about becoming an entrepreneur?  Ever set up your own company?  Or just interested in business?  Then this snapshot session is for you.

Please note: this event is for BU students and members of staff only. Booking is essential. 

Book Now - How I Survived My First year in Business

About Robin Humphreyies and Static Games/White Pug

Robin Humphreyies is a final year student at Bournemouth University, on the Creative Technology course headed by Dr. Christos Gatzidis.  Static Games is the gaming arm of the student business, with White Pug being the trading arm for web and app development.  under the White Pug label, Robin and the team work directly with customers and white-label for local digital agencies.

Agenda

1:00pm:Arrival
1:15pm: How I Survived My First Year in Business:  The Brutal Truth by Robin Humphreyies, Founder of Static Games & White Pug
1:45pm: Q & A
2-3 pm: Coffee, Cake & Networking

 

CfE Event this week! Mega Trends and Sustainability – an Insight from B&Q

Wednesday 12 November 2014
5:30pm arrival for a 6pm start
Executive Business Centre, 89 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, BH8 8EB

We are delighted to invite you to join us for a presentation by George Padelopoulos, Sustainability Manager for B&Q.  George will provide an insight into key challenges currently being addressed by B&Q around ‘Mega Trends’, ‘One Planet’ living, and global ethics.  What will be the impact of future consumer trends and climate change on our buying decisions? Will we still have BBQs and power drills sat in the shed all year round or will we simply ‘borrow’ them whenever we need them?

This is a free event for businesses, BU students and BU staff.  It is a great opportunity to network with colleagues and external businesses!  To book click here

 

Ever launched a CR@B? We did!

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Yesterday was the first meeting of the Consumer Research @ BU group (CR@B) and it turned out to be a busy and energising meeting of minds from a wide variety of disciplines from across BU.  As we listened to each other’s presentations and compared notes the opportunities for working together in new ways unfolded.

Our aim in bringing the group together is to foster inter-disciplinary research, provide a platform for interaction with industry, and a forum for ideas.  Given the success of our first meeting, we will now be holding informal coffee and cake meetings every 4-6 weeks with time for CR@B research bites (short presentations about our research) and discussion.  We will also be planning a series of high profile public research talks and workshops designed with research and industry application in mind.

Anyone who is doing consumer research is welcome.  This might include researchers working in:-

  • Consumer cultures
  • Consumer behaviour
  • Retail and marketing
  • Visual cognition and consumption
  • Food consumerism and consumption
  • Consumer neuroscience
  • Advertising

and almost certainly more.

So … if you think you might be a CR@B, and are out there hiding under a stone, please crawl out and come and join us.

Our next meeting is at 3pm on Wednesday 3rd December in D234, Dorset House, Talbot Campus.  If you would like to come along or would simply like to find out more please email either Jeff Bray in Tourism who is hosting our next session or any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers.

 

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk) 

Congratulations to BU Visiting Faculty on latest publication

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Publishing, Uncategorized

Congratulations to Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada for the paper on financial barriers to the uptake of antenatal care in a rural community in Nepal.1   The first author (a native Nepali-speaker) conducted 50 face-to-face interviews with women and their families in rural Nepal.  These interviews were thematically analysed after transcription.

This latest paper adds to our knowledge into user costs related to maternity services in Nepal as we had already published our findings on users costs in the largest obstetric hospital in the capital. 2

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Porter, M., Simkhada, P. & Wasti, S.P. (2014) Why do costs act as a barrier in maternity care for some, but not all women? A qualitative study in rural Nepal International Journal of Social Economics 41 (8), 705-713

 

  1. Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, G., Simkhada, B., Townend, J. (2012) User costs and informal payments for care in the largest maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Health Science Journal 6(2): 317-334.  www.hsj.gr/volume6/issue2/6212.pdf

 

Upcoming CfE Event: Mega Trends and Sustainability – an Insight from B&Q

Wednesday 12 November 2014

5:30pm arrival for a 6pm start
Executive Business Centre, 89 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, BH8 8EB

We are delighted to invite you to join us for a presentation by George Padelopoulos, Sustainability Manager for B&Q.

George will provide an insight into key challenges currently being addressed by B&Q around ‘Mega Trends’, ‘One Planet’ living, and global ethics.

What will be the impact of future consumer trends and climate change on our buying decisions? Will we still have BBQs and power drills sat in the shed all year round or will we simply ‘borrow’ them whenever we need them?

Book now! 

‘Double Your Customer Spend’ event a resounding success!

The Bournemouth University Centre for Entrepreneurship (CfE) was delighted to welcome Peter Czapp, co-founder of The Wow Company, to the Executive Business Centre on the 23 September to deliver a thought provoking seminar ‘Double your Customer Spend in 12 Months’.

Peter is one of the CfE’s Entrepreneurs in Residence, a small group of proactive business owners who visibly support and encourage entrepreneurship by acting as Champions for entrepreneurship and Ambassadors for the CfE.  The CfE runs a regular programme of free seminars aimed at businesses, BU students and staff. They provide a great opportunity to network and gain useful insights and ideas from other business people.

The Wow Company, is a proactive accountancy practice that advises small businesses across the UK, helping them make more profit, pay less tax and have more fun! Some of Wow’s clients have achieved amazing things; changing their industries, winning awards and ultimately selling for millions. However, most of Wow’s clients are small businesses that just do ok. During this seminar Peter highlighted seven key differences between those that make it big, and those that don’t. These included having a specific client retention plan in place to ensure you are maximising sales to your existing customers and truly looking after all their needs; another important area covered by Peter related to pricing – make sure your charges accurately reflect the amount of time you spend on client work and don’t be afraid of increasing your prices!

Toby Pestridge, Creative Director of Createful was a member of the audience and produced this great visual to summarise the points raised by Peter:

Wow

We are immensely grateful to Peter for delivering this seminar and for his continuing support of the activities of the CfE. You can find out more about The Wow Company by visiting www.thewowcompany.com

Information about the BU Centre for Entrepreneurship can be found at www.bucfe.com or by contacting Nikki Harvey at nharvey@bournemouth.ac.uk

Latest CfE tenant surgery – Matt Hawkins C4L

The Bournemouth University Centre for Entrepreneurship (CfE) was delighted to welcome Matt Hawkins, Chairman and Founder of C4L to the incubator to host our latest Business Surgery.

Matt is one of the CfE’s Entrepreneurs in Residence, a small group of proactive business owners who visibly support and encourage entrepreneurship by acting as Champions for entrepreneurship and Ambassadors for the CfE.

The CfE Business Surgeries are run on a regular basis and provide a fantastic opportunity for early stage and growing businesses to ask questions and pick the brains of experienced professionals and entrepreneurs. They are aimed at both the businesses based at the CfE and also BU students running businesses. Previous Business Surgeries have been hosted by Gary Seneviratne, (Adido), Peter Czapp, (The Wow Company), and Ewan King, (Content is King).

At the age of 25, Matt Hawkins founded C4L in 2000, four years after completing a computing and business degree at Brunel University.  Having programmed his first computer at the age of five, some 33 years later Matt’s privately owned company, C4L, now has a turnover of £12.5m which he expects to increase to £16m in 2014. Since inception the firm has maintained a track record of rapid growth every year due to continuous progression through innovation. Today, C4L is based at County Gates House which borders Bournemouth and Poole and occupies four floors of the building. C4L also owns its own data centre and houses 15,000 square feet of very sensitive data for banks, businesses and technology companies from across the UK and Europe. C4L’s client base includes Government, FTSE 250, financial institutions and many of the UK’s network carriers. C4L was the 2012 winner of HSBC’s South West Business Thinking initiative, and has been ranked in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and Fast 500 EMEA, as well as the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100.

Robin Humphreyies, Managing Director of games developers, Static Games Ltd (www.static-games.co.uk), and current BU student, said, ‘we are extremely grateful to have the opportunity to talk over areas of our business with Matt.’ Robin adds, ‘it is great to receive insight and ideas from someone who has such relevant industry knowledge and experience, and who has already been through the start-up stage and understands both the problems we face, and perhaps more importantly, the opportunities available to us!’

Kaisa Kangro, Managing Director of el RHEY Ltd, (www.elrhey.com), specialist designers of children’s rainwear, agreed this was a ‘great opportunity to meet Matt Hawkins and ask questions to someone who has built such a successful business from scratch.’ Kaisa found Matt’s experiences of managing growth ‘extremely valuable’ and intended to use these insights to help ‘assess and steer’ el RHEY in the future.

The CfE provides support to start up and early stage ventures and in addition to the Surgeries organises a range of activities including business seminars. ‘It is fantastic that both the Entrepreneurs in Residence and the CfE are so eager to offer up their time to help a young business like ours,’ comments Robin, ‘we hope they will continue to support us with further relevant and insightful surgery sessions in the future.’

We are immensely grateful to Matt for his time and for his continuing support of the activities of the CfE and the businesses based here. To find out more about the Centre for Entrepreneurship please visit us at www.bucfe.com or contact Nikki Harvey at nharvey@bournemouth.ac.uk

BU helping to evolve security and privacy by design

On Monday, BU researchers co-organised a workshop on Evolving Security and Privacy Requirements Engineering (ESPRE) at the 22nd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2014) in Karlskrona, Sweden.  The workshop brought together practitioners and researchers from around the world, who shared their thoughts about how security and privacy can be incorporated into the design of software as early as possible, without compromising productivity or sacrificing innovation.  The RE conference series is one of the premier conferences in software engineering, and the ESPRE workshop is the successor of several successful secure software engineering workshops.  Shamal Faily (SciTech) organised this workshop, together with colleagues from Germany (University of Duisberg-Essen), South Korea (Ajou University), and the USA (Carnegie Mellon University).

The workshop began with a keynote talk from Professor Angela Sasse (UCL), who described some recent research examining how companies build security into products they develop, and the need to change the discourse around usability and security.  Three technical paper sessions followed, before the workshop was concluded with an invited talk by Aljosa Pasic (Atos Research & Innovation) on some of the market trends and business challenges in security engineering.  Further information about the workshop itself can be found at http://espre2014.org .

We’re grateful to the Faculty of Science & Technology for co-sponsoring this workshop, and to all the workshop attendees for sharing their work.

Upcoming event: “Double Your Customer Spend in 12 Months!”

Tuesday 23 September 2014,
5:30pm arrival for a 6pm start
Executive Business Centre, 89 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, BH8 8EB

The Centre for Entrepreneurship is delighted to invite you to a presentation by Peter Czapp.

Peter Czapp is co-founder of The Wow Company, a proactive accountancy practice that advises small businesses across the UK, helping them make more profit, pay less tax and have more fun!

Some of Wow’s clients have achieved amazing things; growing quickly, winning awards for their customer service & generating large profits. The one thing that Wow’s top performing clients all have in common is that they are masters at generating revenues from their existing customers. In this seminar, Peter shares insights into what Wow’s most successful clients do differently, including sharing practical tips that you can apply in your own business right away. If you’re looking to double your client spend, attend this event to find out how!

To book please visit: http://bucfe.com/events/double-your-client-spend-in-12-months/